Etan Patz Case: Suspect Indicted in 1979 Murder

A New Jersey man who police say confessed earlier this year to the 1979 murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz was indicted Wednesday for the infamous murder.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said Pedro Hernandez, 51 years old, was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of murder in the second degree and one count of kidnapping. He will be arraigned Thursday.

The case made national headlines almost 33 years ago to the day of Hernandez’s arrest in May 2012. Etan had been walking to the school bus stop from his family’s home in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood when he vanished on May 25, 1979, drawing widespread attention to the issue of missing children across the country.

“This indictment is the outcome of a lengthy and deliberative process, involving months of factual investigation and legal analysis,” said Erin Duggan, spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, in a statement. “We believe the evidence that Mr. Hernandez killed Etan Patz to be credible and persuasive, and that his statements are not the product of any mental illness.”

Hernandez’s attorney, Harvey Fishbein, said on Wednesday that his client provided police with a false confession and would plead not guilty at his arraignment. The attorney vowed that Hernandez would be exonerated at trial.

“Nothing that occurs in the course of this trial will answer what actually happened to Etan Patz,” Fishbein said in a statement. “The indictment is based solely on statements allegedly made by my client, who has, in the past, been repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, and who has, over the last six months, been found to suffer from schizotypal personality disorder” known to produce hallucinations.

Hernandez has “an IQ in the borderline-to-mild mental retardation range,” his lawyer said, and his alleged statements to police haven’t been supported by evidence “despite extraordinary investigative efforts by the police back then and now.”

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Etan’s father, Stanely Patz, said: “I’m not making comments to the press.”